Don Felipe's Travels: Did you ever think we were going to be here?

That was the question I hwas asking myself during the last week. My long time friend from Barrington, Zach Youman, and I spent about a week together visiting each other in our host countries. First he visited me in Valencia and we had a great time around the city and at the beach. Other than the usual sights that Valencia offers we were able to experience a great wine testing festival. It was so good we had to go two nights in a row. Not only was the wine delicious, but there were a number of stalls where we could use our purchased tickets in exchange for tapas. We were able to sample different types of ham, cheeses, and pate. Definitely a great way for Zach to experience Spanish culture. As a added bonus we got free shots of a liquor called "anis". This is a very strong liquor with a black licorice taste. In my opinion one of the worst liquors I have ever drank, but since we were able to get free shots we frequented that stand a couple times. Overall we had great weather in Valencia and we went to the beach everyday, despite Zach being a bit burnt and walking around like a total tourist.

Wine and tapas at the wine festival

Wine festival

Zach in the tourist costume

London
   So after only about a day and a half break from each other I traveled to London. This was my first travel experience out of Spain while studying abroad but, more importantly, my first experience with Ryanair. Let's just say it could have been worst. If anyone has ever seen Soul Plane, Ryanair is exactly like the economy class on the plane, complete craziness. Lucky both flights I was really tired so I was able to sleep through most of the flight. Once arriving in Stansted airport, which is one hour by bus to downtown London, I patiently waited for my bus. I was the first one on and I choose a single seat right in the front. This ride was interesting because the bus driver looked like a short, fat Wolverine and he could not stay in his line even if his life depended on it. All the while this was happening when driving on the "wrong" side of the road so needless to say I was a bit overwhelmed. Got off the bus, hailed a cab (cabs in London are HUGE), and quickly realized that every 6 seconds the meter went up 20 pence. I counted a couple times because I was totally dumbfounded that this was seriously happening. So a 15 minute taxi ride through the richest part of London cost me 18.60 pounds (over $30). I realized that my bank account was going to suffer during this trip. I arrived at Zach's residence hall and spent the night on a bed in the middle of Zach's mini dorm room.
   The next was we visited the London Eye, Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Green Park, Buckingham Palace, Picadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, Tower of London, and London Bridge. Quite a list for 5 hours, definitely deserved that fine English ale after that day. Zach lived in Chelsea, the richest part in London, and all the pictures of me with the cars are only a few of the awesome cars I saw. So my list is as follows: 5 Aston Martins, 3 Maserati, 2 Bentleys, 2 Rolls Royce. This doesn't include all the Audis, BMWs, and Mercedes I saw.
   The next day we visited Oxford Circus and Primark. This was another interesting day because I have not seen that many people on a sidewalk since Fallas, and London is packed like that every weekend. We literally had a standstill on the sidewalk for about 15 minutes. Primark is the craziest store I have ever seen. It's two stories maybe twice the size of Rock and Roll McDonalds, but there had to be at least 300 people in there. Primark is so popular because it sells cheap clothes for cheap. Some of my purchases included a Baywatch shirt, "Ice ice baby"shirt, and a cool pair of euro shoes. Following Primark we headed to an ATM to help replenish my cash but with no success. 5 ATMs later I gave up and had to use some of the emergency money I brought with me (Thanks mom and dad for that suggestion).
   That night was Zach's last night in Europe so we decided to go all out and luckily a world renowned club was having a concert of a really popular european DJ, Laidback Luke. It was probably one of the best clubs I have ever been to, I am definitely going to have to go there again some time. With no sleep I headed back to the airport, got jerked around by security, had to deal with Ryaniar, and got home to my mini bed which at the time was incredibly comfortable.
  The theme of the week still stands because when Zach and I met back in 4th grade we never thought we would be going to a wine festival in Spain or having fish and chips at an English pub. It's too bad it ended that early for you Zach, but don't worry I will still enjoy Europe while I can haha.